


Lessons in Vulnerability and Chaos

by prairiecrow



Series: Lessons in Humanity [15]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: A.I. to Human, Caretaking, Dom/sub, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Gunshot Wounds, Hostage Situations, Human Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Medical Trauma, Nightmares, Psychological Trauma, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:24:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony wasn't a man who doled out trust in big loving handfuls: he gave it grudgingly, in miserly pinches, and even less so when it came to the truly valuable things in his life. He'd been taught some harsh lessons about granting access to what he treasured, and Steve was fully aware that right now he was letting Steve carry the most precious thing he possessed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Steve: Aftermath

"Easy," Tony chanted in a low voice, "easy, don't jostle him," because even though he knew that Steve Rogers was inclined to be as careful as possible under the circumstances he had to do _something_ besides just follow along behind the super-soldier, itching to help but knowing (intellectually, anyway) that this was a one-man job. Steve didn't have to be a mindreader to understand exactly what was going on inside the billionaire's head: nearly eight months of associating closely with Tony, as a fellow superhero and as a friend and between the sheets, had given him a bit of insight into what made the smaller man tick.  

Tony wasn't a man who doled out trust in big loving handfuls: he gave it grudgingly, in miserly pinches, and even less so when it came to the truly valuable things in his life. He'd been taught some harsh lessons about granting access to what he treasured, and Steve was fully aware that right now he was letting Steve carry the most precious thing he possessed.  

"I've got him," he assured, turning sideways to step through the Presidential Suite's doorway even though it was already much wider than a standard hotel room's entrance, just so Tony would be doubly assured that he wasn't going to inadvertently bump Jarvis's injured leg against the door frame. Jarvis, for his part, lay in Steve's arms as trustingly as a child, pale face turned against his flannel-clad shoulder and eyes serenely closed; he'd fallen asleep in the car almost the moment they'd pulled out of the hospital parking lot, and had barely woken up enough to let Tony coax him onto the sidewalk outside The Plaza so Steve could carefully pick him up and carry him inside. Steve didn't blame the blond — after what he'd been through, a shocking invasion of Stark Tower and the battle that followed and two bullets to his own body and a few seconds of sheer terror that he was about to be brutally murdered, exhaustion was only to be expected. 

Tony, on the other hand, was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He stuck to Steve's tail all the way into the palatial bedroom and, at Steve's nod, darted ahead to strip back the covers so Steve could lay down his sleepy burden. Together they got Jarvis's shoes off, taking care not to cause his wounded left thigh and left forearm any additional stress, and then Tony covered him up warmly, brushing a few stray locks of flaxen hair back from his cool forehead. 

He'd just withdrawn his hand when Jarvis's eyelids flickered open and he spoke softly: "Sir?"  

"What is it, baby?" Tony's dark eyes gleamed with intensity, obsessive and tender. "Something you need?" 

"I'm…" He paused to lick his lower lip. "I'm thirsty," and with that Tony was off to the bathroom like a jackrabbit on a date, leaving Jarvis to slowly swivel his head to look up at Steve and whisper: "Captain." 

Steve nodded an acknowledgement. "How're you feeling?" 

Jarvis seemed to consider that for a moment, while water ran in the bathroom sink. "I'm… tired. Moreso than normal." 

Steve nodded again. "You lost a lot of blood. That's to be expected." 

"But I'm going to live?" He'd repeated that question several times in stray moments of consciousness, as if he could still scarcely believe it. 

"You'll live." Steve smiled at him, sitting down carefully on the edge of the bed next to his hips, and equally carefully taking Jarvis's left hand, deliberately not jostling the arm. "You'll need a lot of rest, though, for a while anyway." 

A wan smile in return was his reward. "That will be… rather hard on Sir." 

"Tony can do without you," Steve said firmly, just as Tony emerged with a half-full glass. 

"I'll be fine, buddy," Tony chimed in, coming around to their side of the bed and nodding to Steve, who eased one arm under Jarvis's shoulders to lift him into a half-sitting position. "Besides, who says I'm leaving this suite? I have one priority right now, and that's you." 

"I believe Miss Potts will have something to say about that," Jarvis retorted with a hint of his habitual tartness. 

"Pepper can go jump off what's left of Stark Tower," Tony said bluntly, and curved his right hand around the nape of Jarvis's slender neck to hold him steady while putting the glass to his lips. "Drink up… that's it. Good boy. You want some more?" 

Jarvis shook his head. "No, Sir," he murmured, "thank you," and Tony set aside the empty glass with barely enough attention to get it onto the bedside table, his gaze fixed on Jarvis as Steve lowered him back onto the pillow and used his own handkerchief to dry the traces of moisture on his lips. "How strange… I can barely keep my eyes open…" 

"Don't fight it," Steve advised, exchanging a glance with Tony, who backed him up with a nod. "Your body needs the sleep to heal." He tucked his handkerchief away again, just as Tony's StarkPhone emitted a piercing imperative chirp from the inside breast pocket of his black leather jacket. Tony ignored it, but Jarvis frowned in puzzlement that rapidly turned to borderline distress. 

"Sir? My link with JAMES isn't —" 

"I had him shut it down." Tony ignored his phone, instead devoting his energies to retrieving a chair from under one of the tall windows and carrying it to the side of the bed close to Jarvis's shoulders, where he set it down and sat his ass in it.  

"But," Jarvis continued with dismay that penetrated even his shocky weariness, "without that link I can't —" 

"You're not doing anything for the foreseeable future," Tony said in a tone that brooked no argument whatsoever, "except healing yourself up. I'll get a StarkPad up here with your favourite books and movies loaded so you'll have something to do, but work is right the hell —" 

The StarkPhone beeped again, followed by JAMES's cultured Boston accent, somewhat muffled by the leather: " _Mr. Stark, Miss Potts is —_ " 

"Save it, JAMES."  

Steve cast a doubtful look in Tony's direction. "Maybe you should see what she wants." Then, in response to his incredulous expression: "The Tower's a mess. Decisions have to be made, right?" 

"So what did I make her my CEO for," Tony countered, "if not so I could concentrate on the really important stuff?"  

"Sir," Jarvis whispered, bringing Tony's gaze back to him at once, "he's quite right. There's nothing more you can do for me. I —" Steve could see how uneasily his own weakness sat with him as his eyes flickered closed again. "I need to sleep now, I think. Please, attend to the many matters no doubt awaiting your attention." 

Tony studied him for a long moment, sternness and fondness warring on his face, before he entwined his dark fingers with the white ones curled limply on Jarvis's stomach and growled a vow: "We're going to find out who did this, J. We'll find them, and we'll make them pay." 

Jarvis frowned, his eyelids cracking open to regard Tony narrowly. "Captain Rogers… has already killed —" 

In hindsight, Steve knew he probably shouldn't have thrown the shield as hard as he had — hell, make that _definitely_ shouldn't have, it would have been enough to disarm the mercenary holding the gun to Jarvis's head, breaking his neck hadn't been strictly necessary… but his reflexes had acted well in advance of his conscious mind, and the bastard threatening _his sub_ had died in a split second. He only prayed that witnessing the kill hadn't added another layer of trauma to what Jarvis was already dealing with.  

"Those men were just pawns," he said aloud. "The chess master is still out there somewhere." 

Tony's eyes were on fire. "And he's going to find out just how big a mistake he made by trying to fuck with _my_ stuff." 

Which prompted a smile, thin but genuine, as Jarvis's eyelids drifted closed again. "Oh, Sir… of that I have no doubt…" 

Tony's phone sounded again, this time playing the tune that Steve knew signified a call directly from Pepper Potts' private account — she meant business, and in Tony's grimace he saw that Tony knew it. "God damn it… Steve?" 

"I'll keep an eye on him," Steve promised, freeing Tony to reluctantly rise to his feet and stride back out into the main living area, pulling out his phone to mutter into it — quietly, so as not to disturb Jarvis, whose whole body had gone limp under the expensive bedclothes. Steve shifted into Tony's chair and silently took Jarvis's hand, feeling how cold it was, the bones as fragile beneath his bloodless skin as a bird's.  

 _Subs come in all different flavours,_ Tony had told him back when this had all begun, _but Jarvis is one of the genuinely sweet ones_ — and Steve knew it, hell, he'd always known it, from the first second he'd seen Jarvis enter subspace (not even knowing what he was witnessing at the time) and give himself wholly both to Tony and the man Tony had brought to their bed. Jarvis was precious, hell, he was priceless, and seeing him bruised and bloodied and terrified, eyes squeezed closed and head forced up against the wall by a gun barrel, shivering on his knees as he anticipated a bullet to the brain… 

Instinct far deeper than conscious control, and infinitely more primal, had guided Steve's hand. He'd administered the death penalty for violation of a law that no court in the land would recognize, but one that Tony understood perfectly well: _Nobody takes what's mine._  

Trouble was, Steve had thought himself above such things. Captain America embodied justice, not the bloody rule of vengeance. 

But for that incandescent fraction of a second, bursting into the room and taking in the tableau of imminent execution with no time to think things through, he'd downshifted — no longer Captain America, but Steve Rogers, a man whose only goal was to save his lover's life… 

… and to make the murderous snake who'd dared to touch him pay the ultimate price. 

Looking down at Jarvis's haggard face, listening to the aggrieved rise and fall of Tony's voice from the other room, Steve knew that in this particular battle nobody had escaped without collateral damage. 


	2. Tony: Nightmares

The damned wall, its facing cracked and its substructure broken — Tony had to hold up the wall, or the milling crowd in the street below would die. 

Enough people had died already. JAMES's video feed had provided the evidence, even if JAMES lacked control over anything else in the Tower at the moment: the latest casualties were two people the mercenaries had executed since breaking into the tenth floor safe room, asking curt questions and shooting when those questions weren't answered — 

— and now they'd turned their attention to Jarvis. 

"Steve?" Tony could hear the stress in his own voice, even though the suit was doing all the heavy lifting. "Where the hell are you?" 

"Southwest stairwell, fourth floor." He didn't sound out of breath in the least, even though Tony knew he was powering upward at full speed.  

"They just noticed J."  

"Gimme fifteen seconds." 

"He may not _have_ fifteen seconds," Tony snapped, "JAMES, patch through the audio," because on the vidscreen in his HUD the apparent leader of the invaders was saying that Jarvis was one of the people they were looking for, and was telling him to give up the mainframe entry codes. 

Tony was proud of him, so fucking proud, and terrified, because while the rest of the employees cowered like frightened sheep in the far corners of the room Jarvis was standing tall and facing the demand calmly — and equally calmly refusing to accede to it. Every instinct Tony possessed was screaming to race to the rescue, but he couldn't leave his post, not without letting the wall collapse, and Steve was — 

The lead mercenary mocked: "Don't tell me you're willing to die for Tony Stark?" 

Jarvis looked up at the video camera JAMES was accessing — and cut the video feed, although he left the audio up, _in case they say anything incriminating, always thinking, dear God —_  

Therefore Tony clearly heard his final words, low but icy: "I can imagine no death finer." 

"Well then," the leader said, equally cold, "I guess I'll just have to give you what you want," and Tony yelled without shame: "Steve, now, _now_ would be good —!" 

He heard a scuffle, a grunt, a thud, a scattering of weaker screams, and two heart-stopping single gunshots, the louder shrieks of the onlookers nearly rendering the ultimatum inaudible: "Last chance, Blondie." The only answer was harsh breathing, the gasps of a man in pain and panicking but determined to remain silent, gasps that broke Tony's heart. "Suit yourself." 

" _Steve —!_ " It was almost a curse, definitely a prayer, and damned if it didn't work, because the next sound was music to his ears: the crash of a door being smashed open, the whine of a vibrantium shield cutting through the air, the clear crunch of breaking bones — and a burst of gunfire that ripped Tony open right down to his spine. "Steve? Steve! Jesus, Steve, come in!" 

More screaming, another wet crunch, a span of seconds that hammered Tony harder than Mjolnir… then Steve's voice, clipped but joyous: "I've got him. He's been shot, but he's alive." 

Every muscle in Tony's body turned to water, just for a half-second, in a wave of relief so strong it almost made him pass out. He could hear Jarvis speaking, breathless and wondering: "Captain Rogers… I didn't…" 

"Lie still," Steve commanded, "I've got you," then in a different tone of voice, speaking to the police frequency: "I need emergency medical personnel on the tenth floor of the Tower, Room 1012-B. Man down with gunshot wounds to the forearm and thigh. I repeat, send emergency medical personnel to the —" 

"No," Jarvis moaned, "no, please, no…" 

Tony, whose mind had turned to calculating the structural stresses on the wall segment he was holding in place forty feet above Park Avenue, blinked and thought: _That's not how it happened. Steve said he passed out while he was calling for backup._  

"Please, don't — I won't tell — I won't —" 

The world around Tony began to break apart, the electrically charged air of crisis and the embrace of the suit giving way to something softer under his left side and the slight weight of cloth draped over his right. He was in a bed, not his own, and Jarvis was still speaking in blurred syllables full of distress:

"— kill me — please, don't —" 

That snapped Tony awake hard enough and fast enough to make his head spin. He opened his eyes to a room lit only by a single bedside lamp, quiet and opulent — the bedroom of the Presidential Suite at The Plaza, and he wasn't alone. Jarvis lay in front of him, supine, also under the covers and close enough to touch, while Steve was sitting in a chair just beyond the edge of the bed, gracelessly slumped in sleep with a Gideon Bible in his lap.  

It wasn't a dream, Tony realized as his memory came back online: the Tower had really been attacked, Jarvis had remained on-site to salvage what he could of Ops by accessing the building's computer and security systems through his cranial implant, he'd managed to block the attackers at several key points and had probably saved a whole lot of lives — and then he'd been shot. He'd gone into physical shock, in fact, before the EMTs could get him into an ambulance and start replacing the blood he'd lost. Steve had stayed with him the entire time, and nobody'd had the nerve to tell Captain America that he couldn't be in the ambulance or in the ICU — or Tony, for that matter, when he'd finally been able to let the wall collapse and had sonic boomed over to Bellevue to join them.  

He'd arrived while Jarvis was in surgery, and had been treated to a horrible forty-eight minutes of waiting before the doctor had emerged to announce that she'd repaired the broken flesh as best she could and the patient was going to be fine — weakened, in pain, with a long period of recovery ahead of him, but he'd sustained no permanent damage. 

And Steve had put his arm around Tony's shoulders while Tony thanked the surgeon profusely, a gesture of intimacy and support that he hadn't even questioned at the time, he'd been so giddy with the knowledge that Jarvis was still with them and likely to remain so. 

That had been mid-morning yesterday. Tony had insisted on checking Jarvis out as soon as possible — the nagging fear that no place public was safe enough had him in its teeth, and he hadn't gotten where he was today by not trusting his instincts — and they'd brought him to The Plaza late that same afternoon, pumped full of whole blood and fluids with his wounds solidly bandaged. He'd slept the evening away while Steve kept watch and Tony was glued to his StarkPhone putting out various fires; Steve had ordered food for both of them and set a plate in front of Tony (which he'd largely ignored) before feeding Jarvis in the bedroom. It had been well past midnight before Tony, feeling like he'd been pummelled practically to death by an army of supermice, had dragged himself into the bedroom to find Steve reading the Gideon Bible by the glow of the bedside lamp, and Jarvis deeply unconscious. 

They'd woken him up long enough to take him to the bathroom and get another glass of water plus a painkiller down his hatch, then tucked him back in again — he'd been asleep before they'd finished discussing who was going to take the next watch, with Steve insisting that he'd be fine for another few hours at least. Tony, too exhausted to resist that kind of deal, had stripped down to his undershirt and boxers and slipped into bed too, being careful not to lie too close to the injured man and risk bumping him in the night. He'd drifted off under Steve's intent gaze, sparing a final thought for gratitude that he wasn't in this alone: Jarvis belonged to Steve too, and Steve was a man who took his responsibilities very seriously. 

 _I didn't have to kill him,_ he'd said to Tony, low, while Jarvis was in surgery.  

 _Yeah,_ Tony had nearly scoffed, _you did. The bastard was going to kill_ ** _him_** _._  

Steve had ducked his head, and actually blushed. _I could have just disarmed him._  

 _Steve, if I'd burst in on a thug holding a gun to Jarvis's head, I sure as hell wouldn't have pulled any punches. He got what he deserved._ He'd clapped Steve on the shoulder and offered him a tight smile of encouragement. _Let it go, buddy. It's not worth your peace of mind. J's alive, because you saved him — that's all that matters, right?_  

 _I guess so,_ Steve had nodded, but he'd looked far from convinced. That didn't surprise Tony either: Steve was the kind of guy who regretted having to kill anyone, even scumbags who'd already left corpses scattered throughout Tony's building. Later they'd probably have a conversation about that, about the choice that Steve had made and why — because yeah, he could have gotten away with breaking the guy's arm instead of his neck — but for now they had to concentrate on getting Jarvis through the next few days, because Tony had never seen those blue eyes look more haunted, not even after the initial shock of becoming human. 

He'd seen this coming too: the way Jarvis's face was fear-twisted even in sleep, the way he was twitching and whimpering. Nightmares were a part of PTSD that he was well acquainted with — Afghanistan had taught him a lot of things he'd much rather have never known — and he was reaching for Jarvis before his own fog of sleep had fully dropped away, laying a gentle hand to his far shoulder, running it up his throat to cup his cheek: "Jarvis? Jarvis, it's okay, I'm —" 

Jarvis whined, a sound of pure distress, and turned toward Tony convulsively, trying to grope out with his injured arm and failing miserably. Tony caught hold of it — gently, by the biceps — and moved in, making sure Jarvis's left arm in its sling was tucked into the shallowest part of both their bellies before pressing in close. "Shhhh baby, wake up, it's just a dream —" 

"No," Jarvis whimpered, eyes still tightly closed as his hands clenched and unclenched fitfully, "no no _no_ —" 

"Look at me." He was aware that Steve was sitting up and putting the Bible aside, but he couldn't afford to take his eyes off of Jarvis's face right now. "Come on, open your eyes — that's an order, J, I'm not kidding around here. Look at me!" 

Jarvis frowned, and blinked, and looked up at Tony with a watery gaze full of pained query. "Sir?" he whispered, his voice sounding like rust. "I didn't tell them! I would never —" 

"I know, J." He petted Jarvis's cheek, mustering a comforting smile. "You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You're my best boy." 

"They shot me," he breathed, his eyes widening, "they were going to _kill_ me," and with a little heartbreaking cry of fear he turned his face toward the pillow, burrowing away from the light. "Sir, oh Sir, don't let them —!" 

"It's all right," Tony soothed, "it's okay, that was hours ago, you're safe now," as Steve lay down on the thin slice of mattress on the other side of Jarvis and stretched out against his back, wrapping a powerfully muscled arm carefully over them both. "It's okay, honey — it's all right, see, Steve's here too, we won't let anything else happen to you." 

"He's right," Steve chimed in softly, his voice thick with emotion. "They'd have to get though us to get to you, Jarvis — believe it." He hugged a little tighter, applying the pressure well above the injured portion of Jarvis's forearm. "So nothing's going to happen, all right? I promise." 

" _We_ promise," Tony vowed, and for a long span of minutes they held him warm and fast between them while he shuddered and sobbed, petting him and providing ardent reassurance both spoken and unspoken: he was safe, they were both there, they'd never let anyone hurt him again… and if determination alone could determine truth, well then, they offered no word of a lie. He fell into an uneasy sleep again with tears still wet on his cheeks, but at least he'd turned his face upward again, so Tony was able to kiss the tracks of wetness softly away while his breathing slowly evened out.  

When the tension in his muscles had finally faded to insensibility, Steve raised his eyes to Tony's over Jarvis's left temple and whispered: "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have —" 

Tony shrugged fractionally: he was annoyed with the unexpected nap, but hey, even super-soldiers weren't perfect. "It happens, Cap. Busy day for everybody concerned, right?" 

A pause, while they gazed at each other and felt the rise and fall of Jarvis's breathing held between them. At last Steve said, "Still." 

"It wouldn't have stopped the nightmare from happening," Tony scowled, "so stop beating yourself up about it." 

Steve pressed a kiss to the back of Jarvis's head. Looked thoughtful. Nodded, conceding the point, then murmured: "I don't want to let go." 

"So don't." Tony sighed, and was fairly sure it sounded only a little condescending. "He probably needs this more than he needs us to avoid causing him any pain, so I'm inclined to stay right here." 

"One of us should be awake." 

"If he so much as breathes wrong, we'll both feel it. Relax, Steve." He glanced back toward his right shoulder, roughly in the direction of his StarkPhone on the other bedside table. "JAMES, give me a wakeup call in three hours. And if you hear anything weird from Jarvis, sound an alarm." 

" _Affirmative, Mr. Stark._ " 

"Satisfied?" he demanded. 

Steve's quirk of a smile was rueful — and undeniably fond. "Satisfied," he agreed, and nestled a tiny bit closer against Jarvis's back, his arm around them tightening in a brief hug.  

"Damned straight." Tony settled back down and closed his eyes, trying not to think about how the fall of hair across Steve's perfect forehead filled him with the sudden and nearly overwhelming urge to kiss his fellow Dom silly. It was a not-unfamiliar impulse, but in this particular situation it was about a million miles away from appropriate. 


	3. Jarvis: Security

He woke to the soft yellow glow of a bedside lamp — and to fear as black as night and as red as blood, closing his throat and pounding in his temples, pressing under the line of his jaw like a strangling hand. His left arm, wrapped in bandages and confined with a sling, throbbed as hotly as his left thigh, but the terror was far worse, unsettling the basic structures of his cognition and setting his mind spinning. 

He drew a shallow breath, tensing — 

— and held it, because it carried the scents of Tony and Steve to the very core of his being. He was bracketed between them on this strange mattress, wrapped in the strength of their arms and warmed by the living vitality of their bodies, the measured pace of their breathing grounding him in something other than the hectic pounding of his own heart. 

 _Embraced,_ every sense whispered, _surrounded, enclosed,_ ** _safe_** _,_ and what could have been a whine emerged as a barely articulated sigh instead. 

 _Protected._ He knew that as surely as he knew that Steve had saved his life, and that Tony had kissed away his tears. Immediately his heart rate began to drop. _Valued. Cherished._  

He hadn't weakened. He had performed well. Tony was proud of him, and Steve had — 

He closed his eyes again and pushed the images away with a shiver, hastily banishing the sound the gunman's neck had made when Steve's shield had — 

Tony shifted in his sleep, sighing in his turn. Jarvis stayed very still, and after a few seconds he felt his creator settle down again, muttering inarticulately in his sleep before pressing a blurry kiss to Jarvis's forehead. 

No fear, no dread, no doubt could stand in the face of Tony's love. Likewise no pain, and Jarvis relaxed fully as he nuzzled closer to Tony's neck, drawing another slow breath of his unique and delicious scent. Behind him, Steve purred and nudged his nose into Jarvis's hair, his muscular arm encircling both his partners like a protective rampart. 

They moved together. They breathed together. They made this alien bed into something like home. 

Jarvis let himself drift back down to deeper darkness — bravely, with a trace of a smile, because he trusted that his Masters would always be there to guide him back to the light. 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Does anyone think this would be worth continuing? Lots of hurt/comfort potential... :)


End file.
